


Cookies and Cake

by Smithybadger



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Cooking, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 03:51:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5569933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smithybadger/pseuds/Smithybadger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey has never really had any real food beyond rations. Poe wants to help her fix that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cookies and Cake

**Author's Note:**

> I'm honestly still a mess over Rey's chapter in the Before the Awakening book, so I thought I'd write this to kinda get over that. I wrote it in about 45 minutes, so it is a bit of a mess, but I hope ya'll like it! (also comments are super nice and cool!)

The first time Rey had food - real food, not the rations that only sated you, never filled you - was in the Rebellion's base. It wasn’t even a real meal, just Poe tossing her a packet of old cookies he found in some nook or another, while she waited with Finn.

“Hey,” he’s said, offering the food like it wasn’t important, “You need to eat, how long have you been there?”

She had been there since she had been allowed to be there, but she didn’t really want to speak right now. Everything - the Force - Finn - the lightsaber - had just all happened so fast. But Poe snapped her out of the daze she was in and she looked at him with wide eyes - he didn’t realized the importance of the cookies he was offering her.

“Thanks”, she replied, grabbing the cookies from him greedily. She tore it open, and the plastic wrapping drowned out the beeping of the monitor for a moment. The cookies were hard in her hand and their grainy outsides looked like rocks under the harsh hospital lights. She raised the cookie up to her mouth and bit it.

It was like something she had never really had before - or if it was it was a memory, something buried after years of sand and dust and work. Something of her life before she waited - no not waited, was left, was buried in the taste of the cookie.

Her tumult of thoughts must have been obvious to Poe, who looked at her quizzically.

“You good? Are the cookies too stale? Do you need me to get something else?”

“No, I’m fine,” she said, her throat tightening a bit.

“Are you sure, because you don’t really look it,” he replied peering at her in earnest. Somehow, his expression made her think of Finn, who had looked at her that way when they first met. Like she was someone, not just a thing who brought in metal scraps. She’d seen that expression a lot more lately.

“It’s just this,” she waved the bag of cookies, “It’s new.”

“What, they didn’t have cookies on Jakku? Remind me never to go there.”

“No,” she replied, shaking her head emphatically, “They just, didn’t have food. Or at least any food that wasn’t a ration. I’m pretty sure Plutt stole his from the First Order.”

“Ah yeah, I’ve had those a few times. They taste just like the order, bland and unlikeable.”

Rey nodded and smiled a bit at the joke. 

“But… wait, so you’ve… never had a neft burger? Or hubba chips? You’ve never had anything real?”

“I found some flash dried stuff on a crashed ship once, but it paled in comparison to this,” she said wistfully.

 

“A-ha!” Poe laughed and clapped his hands. He looked elated about  _ something _ . He ran his hand through his disastrous hair (it almost seemed to have a life of its own), and beamed widely.

“I am going to show you the galaxy - the galaxy of food!” he announced, his grin still on his face.

She looked at him dumbfounded. How could he still smile when so much had happened?

“Look, I know you feel awful - I feel awful too,” he said, answering her unspoken question, “But you’re leaving soon and you haven’t even experienced one of the things we’re fighting for! Good food! The New Order despises that which isn’t them, and the food of the galaxy? Well that’s a symbol for how different we all are right there.”

“Yeah, but how do we get it?” she asked. “We’re not exactly in an intergalactic tavern.”

“We make it,” he announced.

 

\----

 

The Rebellion kitchens were well stocked, and most of the serving droids seemed to know Poe. He waved and smiled as they walked in, and Rey stopped to talk to most of them. They knew so much, of something she knew so little and she wanted to know it all. To fill her head with the universe until it exploded. She could finally let herself understand - understand and mourn for her lost time - and she could take in everything she had ever dreamed of, from the ships in her simulator, to seeing the dead plants on her wall alive in person. 

But unlike the Force or flying, cooking wasn’t something that came naturally to Rey.

“Whoops!” she yelled as she dropped an egg, and she could feel something in the back of her head yelling at her for her waste that-could-have-lasted-you-a-day-of-food.

And then:

“Here,” she said, handing a bowl of batter to Poe, who wasn’t expecting it and so it fell downwards, only stopping as she caught it with the Force.

And throughout the whole thing, Poe didn’t mind she messed up. She wasn’t going to not have food if something broke, or there wasn’t enough of something. They could fix it together.

Finally the egg-shell laden batter, was poured into the pan Poe held. Rey used the Force for this too. She wasn’t sure if the Jedi used the Force like minor things like this, but that was why she was leaving to find Luke Skywalker, wasn’t it?

 

While waiting, she and Poe swapped stories about their lives, gradually opening up a bit. Or at least Poe did. She had too much to still think on, but she told him about the time she went joyriding in a ship she had half built herself. He looked impressed she thought, and while it wasn’t like a compliment from Han Solo, it was still nice.

In return, he told her about his mother, who fought in the Battle of Endor, and his childhood, and how he got the jacket in the first place. His childhood and life were filled with color and life and the hustle and bustle of a family that would not keep their nose out of their son’s life.  _ The complete opposite of mine _ , Rey thought. His stories were good,but long, and he was cut off by the beeping alarm.

 

The two pulled the cake out, using the oven mitts graciously provided by the cooking droids and stopped to admire their handiwork. It was a golden cake yes, but only because they thought it was a cake. Yes, it was gold, and yes, it was fluffy, but it was lumpy and lopsided and bubbling over the sides of the pan. 

Poe cut Rey a slice, and she was overwhelmed with it - the smell of the cake and it’s taste.It was fluffy and sweet, like what she had imagined the occasional clouds that frequented Jakku would be like, when she was smaller.

“We did a good job!” she exclaimed with delight, “I did a good job!” and then proceeded to shove more cake into her mouth

“Yeah, we did,” he said back with a smile, a twinkle in his brown eyes. The pair ate the cake until they were content, and it wasn’t until there was one final slice left that Rey stopped.

“I’m going to save this,” she announced,”For- for Finn, when he gets out of the coma. But since I’m leaving, you can get it to him right?” she asked Poe.

“Yeah, of course,” replied Poe.

“Thanks,” she said, giving him a hug - something she hadn’t really done up until the last few days - and he understood that it meant so much more in thanks and trust than any of her words could convey then.


End file.
